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Samsung NC10 Review

Well, I finally received my Samsung NC10 last Thursday. Unfortunately, I was also in the middle of being mad sick so it was hard to enjoy it to the full. But I got better and I’ve been playing around with it for over a week now, so it’s time to do the review.

First up, I’ll do this in-depth text review. Later, I’ll be doing a video review for your viewing pleasure. Possibly Sunday. I dunno, I might be busy. Whatever, it’s not important. Onto the review. The NC10 is a 10.2” Intel Atom-based Netbook. Specs-wise, it’s pretty typical of the class. 1.6GHz Atom, 1GB of RAM and all the usual ports.

Unusual is the hard drive. A spacious 160GB model gives me lots of room for games, a definite plus. The battery is a nice big 6-cell unit and either by witchcraft or fine engineering, it runs longer than other netbooks sporting same capacity batteries in my experience – such as the Eee PC 1000 (Which has flash storage incidentally).

The keyboard is the next standout feature. It’s been described as the best netbook keyboard ever and I’m inclined to agree. Typing on the Samsung is bliss, the keys are a nice size and the feel of them – both the texture and the action – is fantastic.

The touchpad is nothing to get excited about. It’s functional and it sports multi-touch gestures like pinch to zoom but I disabled the scroll regions – I just find it makes the touchpad too small, especially since I’m the kind of guy who likes to sue the whole are for my mousing around.

The boot time is perfectly adequate. I think it takes a little longer than my old Eee, but not long enough that it bothers me. It’s still a might fast boot, and that’s Windows XP we’re talking about! Fast booting XP used to be crazy talk!

Stylistically, the Samsung’s a clear winner. It just has an undeniable sleekness and the nifty glowing Power button on the side at the hinge is awesome. I also like the SD card slot’s blocker – a nice touch.

The system runs at a nice temperature, never too hot to sit on your lap comfortably. Air is blown out the left, but despite this and the presence of a hard drive, I’m pretty sure that the Samsung is never as loud as the Eee PC 701 was (When the latter had its fan running). That’s odd, but also awesome.

All in all, I love the new system. With it’s larger screen the internet now displays perfectly. The Windows operating system has allowed me to get back into (Admittedly) classic PC gaming and the weight remains sufficiently low that I can carry it in one hand by a corner.

The Samsung NC10 is the pinnacle of netbooks and, at £299.99 delivered, it’s value is incredible. I can honestly say I recommend this model to anyone considering a netbook purchase and it’s easily going to tide me over until I buy my MacBook Pro in late 2010.